The taste of summer holidays at Cut Lunch Deli in Randwick

"My favourite thing in the whole world is a fresh tomato," says Libby Dunlop, owner of sandwich shop Cut Lunch Deli. "Well, bread as well. I really love bread."

Come summer, Dunlop's Randwick sanger joint, a bright and airy space in a line of shops on Clovelly Road, will pounce on tomato's juicy pulpy fruit for fillings. For now, as winter winds whip the sea down the road, Cut Lunch Deli's menu is a haven of warming bread-enclosed bits.

Succinct and wide-ranging in styles, the menu is divided into three sections, Breakie, Toasties and Sandos (a reworking of a culturally insensitive word merged with a nod to nearby beaches).

Dawn visitors can wrap their mouths around avocado-filled toast or a focaccia-encased bacon, egg and cheese number, chokka with filling and oozing a spicy mayonnaise made using Oomami chilli oil by Bondi local Joe Hedley.

Late-rising sandwich fans have the choice of all-day toasties, the Misomite or ham and pickle, and five sandwich combinations, the Morty D, the Schnitz, the Green, an eggplant and salami creation or Korean fried mushrooms.

Cut Lunch Deli is predominantly takeaway but there are bench seats inside and two table outside to eat these beauties. It's on one of the bench seats that a man eating the Green sandwich looks up to beam mid-munch. Strewn with avocado, lettuce, cucumber and chive yoghurt dressing his smile is an advertisement for happiness, memorable selfies and robust toothpicking.

The ham and pickle toastie, which used to be the Rubenish until cabbage prices shot up, verges on the perfect sandwich. Fresh off the press, or a day later from the fridge, its sharp, tangy pickled zucchini and onion stays magical between layers of ham and Jarlsberg cheese on multigrain bread. All the bread, potato buns, l'ancienne rolls and focaccia comes from Organic Bread Bar in Paddington.

Equally good is the Korean fried mushroom, a plant-based roll stuffed with lightly battered fungi, vegan kimchi slaw and pickled radish. It is hefty, crunchy and excellently sticky and rich between lovely chewy bread. The idea for Cut Lunch Deli, which opened in late March, came to Dunlop during lockdown but has its roots in years of planning.

After training in pastry making at Le Cordon Bleu in Ryde, Dunlop's career moved from working in fine dining at Quay, studying business at university and working in finance and accounting. When lockdown hit she began dreaming of childhood summer sandwiches.

"I remembered how, on these beautiful holidays to Crescent Head, we'd come home from a whole day at the beach and have fresh white rolls, with freshly sliced up tomatoes, cheese, lettuce with Spanish onion, salami ham and whatever," she says. "I'd think, 'Why is this not an everyday food?' It's just so good, you know? I was just madly obssessing over sandwiches in lockdown. I ate loads of them."

Having saved up some money ("My friend bought houses, I started a business"), Dunlop put her accounting skills to work. She devised a detailed business plan and took the plunge on her first solo venture in an area she felt lacked sandwich variety. Just as she signed the lease, Frank's Deli opened up the road in Waverley. "But they're actually total legends," she says." We're quite good friends now".

Anyone visiting Cut Lunch Deli will feel the friendly vibe throughout. Customers arrive wearing the deli's bright yellow monikered caps and shelves feature products Dunlop loves including dinky fruit and vegetable-shaped candles from Nonna's Grocer, Quimby's honey and packets of beans by Wollongong roaster Abstract Coffee, also used for in-house coffee.

Staff are friendly without faking it and Dunlop may well be on-site to seek opinions on bready goods to daily sweets, including burnt-butter choc-chip biscuits made with milk and dark chocolate and heady cinnamon scrolls.

Moving into summer, there are plans to offer picnic packs to take down the hill to the beach.

"Food is always something that I've been completely obsessed by," Dunlop says. "We have so many plans for the future. More specials, new menu ideas, different kinds of sandwiches and lots of tomatoes. Heaven."

The low-down

Cut Lunch Deli

Vibe Sunny, eastern beaches sandwich joint obsessed with fillings

Go-to dish Ham with zucchini and onion pickle toastie